Faith like potatoes (Blog from 2017)
I recently harvested my first ever grown crop of potatoes. It was so much fun, even Florence enjoyed digging up our gifts of food from the earth.
We bought the ‘seed’ potato about 3 months ago, which is when they have to be stored in a cool dark place to sprout the seeds, much like when an old potato is inedible. In the meantime I spent several hours cultivating the soil, removing glass, rocks, weeds and then going it over it again in order to create a fertile ground for the potatoes to ‘take’. Once we were satisfied with the soil we planted the seed potatoes about 12 inches under the surface (1 year-old Eden enjoy helping with this by throwing them in as hard as she possibly could, it’s a wonder/miracle they survived this stage). We then covered over and watered… and had to TRUST.
We had to trust all the way, we saw no growth, no change, just some new weeds over the first 6 weeks. I was afraid that I had made a mistake, got it wrong, hadn’t bought the right seeds, hadn’t planted them deep enough, no end of unhelpful doubt, but I soon chose to trust.
We had done all the work, but we had to trust that God, the rain, the earth, our guidance from people who had done it before that the potatoes knew what to do. If we became impatient at any point and checked the potatoes too soon we would’ve killed them, we had to give the seeds a chance to grow, trust the advice we had been given and relax.
Then all of sudden we had shoots of green! Over next 3-4 weeks the shoots became huge plants AND flowered just like we had been advised, though we STILL couldn’t see the potatoes. 12 weeks later (today) we harvested our first crop and tonight we get to enjoy the fruits of our labour, faith and patience, it’s so much fun and feels so EASY.
We trusted/had faith, we ignored our doubts; the inner voice that said we were wrong. We waited, and today we are literally reaping the rewards. This is just like introducing Real Love into our family. We surrender, we admit we don’t know what to do, we ask for loving guidance. We then cultivate the soil and remove the weeds (the getting and protecting behaviours), all the bad bits that cause us more pain and upset. Then we water our seeds, let the love and nourishing of other people give us what we need, trust the advice we are given. Say no to doubt, trust, trust, trust even though some days we won’t see any growth. We have patience when we feel disheartened, despondent, insist that things happen sooner. We demand that our partners be doing more or responding better, we want to see and devour the fruits of our labour too early and this kills all of our effort.
So instead we TRUST our loving guidance, TRUST Gods love and allow everything to take place without controlling it. Then at some point we see the shoots, we keep going, we be consistent and finally we get to harvest a lovely ripe crop of unconditional love in our relationship. We have a stronger connection with our partners, more trust, more understanding, more joy, more happiness, everything we wanted really.
We just gotta have faith like potatoes!
There is a wonderful movie at featuring Angus Buchan a farmer from South Africa who had an awful time as he grew his faith in God, it’s a very touching film and we highly recommend it’s. It’s called – Faith like potatoes and can be bought on amazon too.
Be great to hear what you learn
Love, Ben x
